Mt Kenya University sends home 2,900 part-time lecturers

What you need to know:

MKU will this week embark on recruitment of the new lecturers to create a linkage between the university and the industry.
The 100 lecturers to be hired will be recruited competitively with emphasis on those with doctorate degrees.

Mount Kenya University has announced plans to trim its part-time lecturers from 3,000 to just 100.

University chairman Simon Gicharu said the institution would this week embark on recruitment of the new lecturers to create a linkage between the university and the industry.

Mr Gicharu said the decision to clean up the systems would boost efficiency.

“We have a situation where units are being split into several categories in order to create room for more part-time lecturers,” he said.

He said the 100 lecturers to be hired would be recruited competitively with emphasis on those with doctorate degrees.

At the same time, the university has tapped the services of two leading medicine lecturers from India to strengthen its medicine school.

Dr Alpana Kulkarni and Dr Pradeep Kulkarni, both specialists in pharmaceutical and physiology, are set to join the university in May.

“We have sought their services and experience to strengthen our schools of medicine and pharmacy. These are top notch lecturers that this institution requires,” said Mr Gicharu.

The university is among 10 institutions offering medical and dentistry courses in the country, which have been cleared by the East African Community (EAC) medical boards and councils to continue with their training.

However, EAC medical boards and councils in its report asked the university to put in place staff development programme in the next six months.

The council also lauded the institution for its public private partnership initiative which has seen it put up a Sh300 million anatomy facility at Thika Level 5 Hospital in Kiambu County.

The university has embarked on the construction of an ultra-modern Sh600 million facility to accommodate teaching and administrative personnel.

The inspection was conducted in the country from January 16 to 22 with an objective of ascertaining whether the universities and their teaching hospitals are complying the minimum standards and guidelines as approved by the EAC medical boards and councils to successfully train competent doctors and dentists.